Tuesday, August 04, 2015

That’s right. It’s a rare occurrence – something that
has happened just 12 times since 1926, according to Fortune –but the Standard & Poor’s 500 Index (S&P 500) has
remained in a narrow trading range for seven months. For every sector that has delivered performance gains
(for instance, healthcare, software, and consumer discretionary), there has been one with losses that have offset those
gains (for instance, energy, materials, and industrials).

The S&P 500’s unremarkable gains year-to-date are
owed to just a handful of stocks, which Barron’s
said means the market has bad breadth. That’s not a good sign,
but it’s not a bad sign, either. Less breadth doesn’t always signal the end of a bull market:

“Big downturns are almost always preceded by a lack of
breadth, which is one reason some folks are preparing for the end. There’s only one problem: Declining
breadth doesn’t always signal the end of a bull market. From September 4 to October 13 of last year, the
S&P 500 outperformed the equal-weighted version of the index by more than 1.5 percentage points [a measure indicating
lack of breadth], leading to similar calls that it was time to bail. The S&P 500 gained 8.5 percent during
the next three months.”

Fortune’s analyst reviewed the historical data for the dozen
years that offered similar market performance during the first seven months of the year and found thata range of outcomes is possible. The
S&P 500 Index could:

·Remain relatively
flat: It happened in 1994.

·Deliver a loss
over the full year: It happened in 1930, 1941, and 1990.

·Deliver a gain
over the full year: It happened during the remaining eight years.

·The median return
for the twelve years was 6 percent.

Reading stock market tea leaves is no easy task.
That’s why it’s important to remain focused on your financial goals and the strategies you’ve selected to help
pursue them.

Data as of 7/31/15

1-Week

Y-T-D

1-Year

3-Year

5-Year

10-Year

Standard & Poor's 500
(Domestic Stocks)

1.2%

2.2%

9.0%

15.1%

13.3%

5.5%

Dow Jones Global ex-U.S.

0.5

2.4

-6.1

6.8

3.1

2.7

10-year Treasury Note (Yield
Only)

2.2

NA

2.6

1.5

3.0

4.3

Gold (per ounce)

1.6

-8.4

-14.5

-12.2

-1.6

9.8

Bloomberg Commodity Index

-1.6

-12.0

-28.3

-14.0

-7.5

-5.5

DJ Equity All REIT Total Return Index

1.0

-0.9

9.1

9.9

12.4

6.8

S&P 500, Dow Jones Global ex-US, Gold, Bloomberg
Commodity Index returns exclude reinvested dividends (gold does not pay a
dividend) and the three-,five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; the DJ
Equity All REIT Total Return Index does include reinvested dividends and the
three-, five-, and 10-year returns are annualized; and the 10-year
Treasury Note is simply the yield at the close of the day on each of the
historical time periods.

Sources: Yahoo! Finance, Barron’s, djindexes.com,
London Bullion Market Association. Past performance is no guarantee of future results.
Indices are unmanaged and cannot be invested into directly. N/A means not
applicable.

if you sleep more, you may earn more
money. Researchers were trying to
evaluate the importance
of sleep so they focused on two American cities in a single time zone:
Huntsville, Alabama (on the eastern
edge of the central time zone) and Amarillo, Texas (on the western edge of the
same time zone). The sun sets
an hour later in Amarillo, so the assumption was made that people get less
sleep in Amarillo than they do in Huntsville.

The
findings reported in Time Use and
Productivity: The Wage Returns to Sleep, by Matthew Gibson of Williams College
and Jeffrey Shrader of the University of California-San Diego, were people who
get one hour less shuteye, over
a long period of time, earn about 4.5 percent less.

From
an economic perspective, the idea may seem counterintuitive. After all, when
you’re snoozing you’re not producing. However,
from a psychological point of view, it makes a lot more sense. A British study
of 21,000 employees found those who
slept six hours or less each night were less productive than employees who
slept for seven or eight hours.

Sleep
issues, however, may become more important as we become attached to devices
like tablets, laptops, and smart
phones. Research described in Scientific
American found two hours of tablet use before bedtime suppressed melatonin
release. Melatonin is a hormone that lets us know it’s time to sleep.

So,
if you’re having trouble getting to sleep and use a smart phone or tablet
before bed, you may want to turn down
the brightness of your glowing screens before bed – or switch back to good
old-fashioned books.

Weekly
Focus – Think About It

“I do not think there is any thrill that can go
through the human heart like that felt by the inventor as

he sees some creation of the brain unfolding to
success… such emotions make a man forget food, sleep, friends, love,
everything.”

--Nikola Tesla, Inventor of the Tesla Coil

Best regards,

Leif M. Hagen

Leif
M. Hagen, CLU, ChFC

LP Financial Advisor

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